Global equities and U.S. Treasury yields were lower on Wednesday as investors awaited the release of the Federal Reserve's meeting minutes that are expected to shed light on the trajectory of interest rates.
The Fed minutes from the Jan. 31-Feb.1 meeting are set to be published at 2 pm ET, and will give traders some detail into the debate over how much further interest rates may need to be hiked to curb inflation. The meeting preceded recent strong economic data that demonstrated the resilience of the U.S. economy and heightened worries of a longer rate-tightening cycle. "The minutes is a little bit outdated because of the data that came out after the Fed discussion but people will be parsing through it to see if there's any disagreement on the path forward for rates," said Moustapha Mounah, portfolio manager at James Investments in Dayton, Ohio.
The MSCI world equity index , which tracks shares in 50 countries, was down 0.33%. European stocks shed 0.38%.
Wall Street stocks were choppy ahead of the Fed's minutes, with the three main indexes mostly flat as gains in consumer discretionary and industrials shares were offset by weak demand for technology equities.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.08% to 33,157.55, the S&P 500 gained 0.05% to 3,999.39 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.12% to 11,505.78.
U.S. Treasury yields retreated after surging to three-month highs. Benchmark 10-year yields were lower at 3.9137%.
"The bond market has already priced in more rate hikes
but the stock market it hasn't repriced to reflect all of the
movement in the rates," Mounah added.
(Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York; Editing by Chris
Reese)
